Can't Seem To Make First Sale -Ecommerce

[Ed in Tx]

In my opinion the biggest obstacle that you face is most people aren't willing to pay for high quality custom handmade leather goods. People are either more interested in buying some cheap import junk or on the other end of the spectrum only interested in buying items with a designer name on it. Despite the fact you may well indeed produce higher quality items you aren't Gucci, Burberry or any other of the names. I have had the same issues, started trying the Etsy route a couple of weeks ago but not any luck yet.

Hang in there sometimes it just takes a little time.

[terrypen]

How long did it take you to make your first sale online?

How'd you market your website to make that first sale?

What was your marketing budget?

I am just starting leather work but I personally had never even heard of Horween leather before I started looking at getting into doing something in leather.

I say that because I'm just not sure how many people do searches for bifold wallets using the word Horween. I'm guessing it is lower than other words or phrases. I would guess that there is a way to figure out how many people are actually searching for that word on Google. You need to find out what words people are using to do searches for what you are trying to sell.

As an example, I have a 1965 Ford F100 pickup and while it has been a while since I have done any editing on that page, I still get hits on it. If you do a search for "My 65 Ford F100 engine" it is the first image that Google displays http://terrypen.w5nra.com/images/65ford/65Ford_Engine.jpg It matches that search almost exactly by the page name and the image name. It takes some work to get it up there and keep it there, you have to keep editing and make it relevant by studying search engine data. It's still a work in progress BTW.. I have too many hobbies I think, and not enough money!

[Geneva]

I have been in your shop. I see four things wrong with your product.

1. It overpriced

2. It is not finished. There should be a liner in the wallet not ink pen marks around the perimeter of the product.

3. Very few people know what Horween leather is.

4. The stitch seems are crooked and thread you used is to large. A 138 or a 92 thread would be better. In my opinion,

Good luck on selling stuff.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Geneva

[tossik]

I have been in your shop. I see four things wrong with your product.

1. It overpriced

2. It is not finished. There should be a liner in the wallet not ink pen marks around the perimeter of the product.

3. Very few people know what Horween leather is.

4. The stitch seems are crooked and thread you used is to large. A 138 or a 92 thread would be better. In my opinion,

Good luck on selling stuff.

Brutally honest lol.

[Aidanforsyth0]

Brutally honest lol.

I have been in your shop. I see four things wrong with your product.

1. It overpriced

2. It is not finished. There should be a liner in the wallet not ink pen marks around the perimeter of the product.

3. Very few people know what Horween leather is.

4. The stitch seems are crooked and thread you used is to large. A 138 or a 92 thread would be better. In my opinion,

Good luck on selling stuff.

1) What do you think is a reasonable price then? Why do you think it's overpriced?

2) The products I ship out to my customers are not marked up with pen at all. I will change the picture as soon as I can. I'm a little short on time at the moment due to all of the orders I have been receiving.

3) You're 100% right. That doesn't make it a bad thing though. The Horween Leather Products niche is definitely alive and well. It sets me apart from the other thousands of leather goods companies that use cheap leather.

4) I don't use machine stitching. The stitching is not crooked on my products. If you could link me to the photo that the stitching looks crooked in that'd be great. I have looked into thinner thread but am sticking with .8 mm thread.

I assume you make leather goods? Id be interested in checking out your products.

[tossik]

1) What do you think is a reasonable price then? Why do you think it's overpriced?

2) The products I ship out to my customers are not marked up with pen at all. I will change the picture as soon as I can. I'm a little short on time at the moment due to all of the orders I have been receiving.

3) You're 100% right. That doesn't make it a bad thing though. The Horween Leather Products niche is definitely alive and well. It sets me apart from the other thousands of leather goods companies that use cheap leather.

4) I don't use machine stitching. The stitching is not crooked on my products. If you could link me to the photo that the stitching looks crooked in that'd be great. I have looked into thinner thread but am sticking with .8 mm thread.

I assume you make leather goods? Id be interested in checking out your products.

Damn, you sounded so hostile. Learn to take criticism or don't ask for people's opinions.

[Aidanforsyth0]

Damn, you sounded so hostile. Learn to take criticism or don't ask for people's opinions.[/quote

Damn, you sounded so hostile. Learn to take criticism or don't ask for people's opinions.

I'm just asking him for his reasoning behind what he said. Criticism is fine. I just want to know the reasoning behind it so I can improve on my business

[SteelcityK9Cop]

My opinions on much of this have changed greatly since my original post. I have been working hard on SEO but it's a bioch to say the least. Pulling traffic from well established businesses is an uphill battle. Your stuff can look great on your site but people like to shop with who they are comfortable with, especially when they are dropping some significant coin.

Etsy... I have all but given up here, but I think that's just for my niche. It can work for you but I think it's product dependent.

Social media is the way to go... Pay to click can get quite expensive but it does work. I have not noticed an increase in SALES from pay to click coming from FB however. What I have noticed in sales increases however ar ethe simple "like" campaigns from FB. More like have brought HUGE increases in site traffic and huge increases in sales for just pennies a day.

If you are not hitting Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and YouTube, you are missing out on some serious exposure for your business and some serious ching in your pocket. Also, there are a ton of free e-books out there on how to use each of these platforms to your liking. If you are not tracking your site-stats, you are also not paying attention to where you need to spend your time, attention, and money directing your mare ting. And believe it or not... time you spend goofing around on Facebook and YouTube is marketing!

[RStevenson]

This topic is very interesting to me as I just launched my website. I'm considering doing pay to click. Unfortunately I haven't stocked a lot of products yet because I'm waiting for a leather order and the ones I have I'm selling cheaper than I want to because I haven't established a base...

Etsy hasn't worked for me so far either. I've had my stuff up for over a week and not one sale unfortunately with something like 6 views a day from etsy... I also think etsy is a niche thing, I just got it at first so when I advertised there was a way for people to actually make a purchase. I'm hoping with a professional looking site I can attract customers and it will be easier to market.

link: stevensonleatherco.ca

Edited April 29, 2015 by RStevenson

[NVLeatherWorx]

Breaking into the eCommerce world doesn't happen overnight, regardless of how big the market is that you are exposed to. Just take a look around the Internet and see how many people are doing the same thing as you are. I have now entered into a battle with some Chinese group that is trying to register my domain name over there (with the .cn extension of course) because they feel "the name reflects their product" which is a bunch of crap. I have had some minor success with Etsy but that isn't my only outlet and if you look around the Etsy marketplace you will find literally thousands of shops for leather goods (a few very nice one's but a bunch of kit based makers is the bulk of it) and very few of them actually have a quality product; the same holds true to what you find on the Internet in general. You should expect the eCommerce trek to be slow as there are way too many options out there that get to the screens of consumers long before yours does and that is primarily based on the choice of key words used.

If you have a truly quality, and unique, product then you will eventually find that you will be making sales but you have to be different (and original) in order to make this happen and it does take time. The myth that the online world is the new way of doing business and that business will be good is just that, a myth. It is a great source of information and for research but when it comes to retail it has been flooded by tons of businesses doing the same thing from all corners of the globe and even the big companies find that their existence on the web may increase sales but those sales are actually transacted with a face-to-face contact with the customer when they are in their physical stores. The internet and eCommerce are not the guaranteed success that the myth perpetuated.

Good luck to those who are just entering the eCommerce realm but I highly recommend that you get out to marketplaces and craft fairs or like events and get your face and the product in front of as many humans as you possibly can, this is how you get to be known.

[leatherwytch]

They cannot register your name with it's spelling and if you got .com at the end. They can however do it with .net, tv, .ca or any of the others or change the spelling. The thing is whomever you are registered with knows how long you have had that URL I would not be worried about it. They have tried to steal my business names before I have told them to go ahead and try and they have failed miserably.

[SteelcityK9Cop]

This topic is very interesting to me as I just launched my website. I'm considering doing pay to click. Unfortunately I haven't stocked a lot of products yet because I'm waiting for a leather order and the ones I have I'm selling cheaper than I want to because I haven't established a base...

Etsy hasn't worked for me so far either. I've had my stuff up for over a week and not one sale unfortunately with something like 6 views a day from etsy... I also think etsy is a niche thing, I just got it at first so when I advertised there was a way for people to actually make a purchase. I'm hoping with a professional looking site I can attract customers and it will be easier to market.

link: stevensonleatherco.ca

If you are talking Facebook, I would try a "Like" Campaign before a "Pay to Click" and evaluate what kind of site traffic you are getting.

[tossik]

Before people go and pay Facebook for advertisement, please go and watch this video, it is worth 9 minutes!

Do not pay Facebook for advertising!

[krominix]

Before people go and pay Facebook for advertisement, please go and watch this video, it is worth 9 minutes!

Do not pay Facebook for advertising!

Wow, great info!

[tossik]

Wow, great info!

Thanks! I do professional services marketing for a living, I have done lots of research on this and the video confirms what we find, and lot of internet marketing is not worth paying, unless you are investing lots of money in it. (there are always exceptions though).

[Geneva]

If after all of this time you have not sold anything through ecommerce, I would find a different hobby if I were you.

[krominix]

If after all of this time you have not sold anything through ecommerce, I would find a different hobby if I were you.

Thanking you for blessing us with this amazingly insightful post!

[Geneva]

Anytime.